How Padma Lakshmi Takes Care of Herself

Padma Lakshmi is the definition of a jack of all trades — except for the fact that she happens to be a master of all of them, too.

And now, the TV host, supermodel, actress, chef, author, activist, and mother gets to add another accomplishment to her impressive resume: co-creator of a capsule collection of makeup for MAC Cosmetics. The MAC x Padma Lakshmi collection, released last week, features a wide range of products that cater to an equally wide of a range of skin tones — something Lakshmi felt was incredibly important. (Amen.)

"I think there really is a need in the marketplace," she says. "It's exciting."

When she isn't starting a beauty empire, Lakshmi keeps herself busy by taking care of her daughter, testing recipes, and as the beloved host of "Top Chef," while simultaneously serving as a global ambassador for Keep a Child Alive and the ACLU. In 2009, she co-founded The Endometriosis Foundation of America in order to help raise awareness of the disease and to raise funding for relevant research. On International Women's Day in 2016, she released her first memoir, "Love, Loss, and What We Ate."

In other words, she's a busy woman — and self-care is a must so that she can keep doing what she does best. If you, too, want to run the world like Lakshmi, you might as well start with the ways she takes care of herself on an everyday basis. Here are just a few.

1. She makes a list.

"The first thing I do is just make sure I make a list in my head of the things I really have to get done that day. Either I’ll write a little note to myself in a text, or, if it’s not too long a list, I’ll just make a mental note. Then, once I have that list, I try and prioritize. I tag it in the order of importance so I don’t get frazzled. I think being organized mentally is really important. It calms me down and makes me less stressed.

"I’m packing for Paris, for example. As a model, I literally would pack in 20 minutes. Now, I take forever to pack. But I think it’s OK. For me, packing is even meditative. I put out all my clothes and I try and pack them as I’m going to wear [them]. Wherever I’m going, it’s all organized. For me, the act of organizing my life in different ways is meditative and relaxing. It’s also busy work, so your mind can wander and think of other things."

2. She does household chores.

"I know it sounds weird, and I don’t do too much of it now, because I have a housekeeper, but in the olden days, I really loved doing laundry, and I loved cleaning my house. One day in the weekend, I felt like if I was upset about something mentally, I used a physical act to just work it out. It can be tiring, but what that does is occupy your hands, get you moving — [and] it also actually takes some tasks off your desk."

3. She gets regular massages and facials.

"I really do try and get massages twice a month. I get a facial every six weeks. If I have a big red carpet event, then I’ll get another facial of a different kind."

4. She takes a bath… in her bedroom.

"I have a bathtub in my bedroom. And I find that that’s a much better place for it than in your bathroom. The rest of my life, before, I had it in the bathroom, like most people. And I love taking baths — I mix essential oils, and I’m really, really lavish about making my bath as interesting and therapeutic as possible. That can be anything from putting essential oils in, or making my own bath salts, or buying those effervescent balls of bath salts that just dissolve — my daughter also likes those — or jojoba oil, if my skin is kind of dry, especially in the winter.

"But I find that it’s much more relaxing in the bedroom, because it’s a nicer environment. I don’t want to spend that much time in my bathroom, so if anybody does have the luxury of doing a redo in their house, and they have room to put in plumbing, I highly recommend it. I even bought this wooden plank that just goes across the bathtub — and it’s so useful. I’ll keep it under my bed, and I’ll often have a snack in the bathtub, I will have a glass of wine in the bathtub, I will of course read there. I have, in the past, put my computer there, but that’s a dangerous way to go.

"I don’t watch a lot of TV, but a lot of times, after I put my daughter to sleep, or if she’s spending the weekend with her father, I catch up on my television. And then I just sit in the bath and watch TV. That’s really a luxury for me — those are my guilty pleasures."

5. She makes time to read for pleasure every day.

"For me, the biggest luxury is actually carving time — even if it’s just 15 minutes — to read something. It can’t be something that I have to do for work. It can be a newspaper, it can be the New York Review of Books, it can be silly. It can be anything! It can be a beauty blog, it can be a book. It just has to be an actual piece of writing. I have this leaning tower of books by my bed. On my desk in my bedroom, I have two leaning towers of books; and then on my nightstand, I have the prioritized leaning towers. They also include a couple books I’m reading with my daughter, who’s 8. But it can be anything. It can be an old book from Joseph Conrad, it can be a book that I have no interest in finishing, but just want to skim through. I read all kinds of things.

"I love just reading the paper by the fire while [my daughter] practices piano or is doing her LEGOs. That's what we do a lot. I've traveled so much in my life, and I really don't think I'd be who I am without all the travel — certainly not who I am professionally. But for me, to stay home, in a quiet house, with a roaring factory or hot bath, a glass of wine, and my child — is, kind of, perfect."

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